Extaordinaryreads

Pitch

A 3-point pitch, why I truly believe this book can reach a few new readers who otherwise never considered themselves fans of poetry: First: It's about drinking! The good, the bad, and the ugly of it. The raucous, drunken, mad, idiotic, regrettable, and joyous escapades. And I truly believe that, if your thirst is as deep and gorgeous as mine, if you and your friends have a few drunken tales of your own, then this book will be a helluva lot of fun. Second: It's not about drinking at all. I mean, yeah, sure, every poem has booze in it, but it merely serves as the lens through which a much bigger, more complex tapestry is woven. This book, like all art really, is about just two things: love and death, that profoundly joyous and terrible human predicament. The booze is just easier to see! Look deeper and you'll find a book that is vulnerable and tortured, lost and confused, and in the next turn crazy, cackling, swaggering, and unhinged. The final result is a fractured, poetic mosaic-- a spiritual journey that has walked through the existential Badlands and forged, from them, a proud, hard-won redemption. Lastly: It's funny! Its like a fortune cookie my brother once chose: "If you can't laugh at your own life, then it isn't much." Damn straight. All these stories testify to the utter jackassery we are all (hopefully) capable of. "Some people never go crazy," says Bukowski, "what truly horrible lives they must lead." So, if you've ever been drunk, if you've ever been insane, or lost, or too loud; if you've ever been lusty, or desperate; if you've ever been a little salty with authority; if you've ever struggled with love or no love; if you've done something you regret, or wished you'd done a helluva lot more to regret-- you'll find something hilarious and familiar in this book. And, sure, poetry isn't everyone's thing, but this is as approachable as poetry gets. There's nothing terribly pompous or exclusionary, nothing opaque, or snooty. It's a humble, human book, a book to laugh at, laugh with, and in the end drink to! And you should. I hope you will,

Biography

Hosho McCreesh is currently writing & painting in the gypsum & caliche badlands of the American Southwest. His work has appeared widely in print, audio, & online.

From A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst

And when you

walk in, your buddy

is in the middle of his

glorious story about

the time he was

zonked on mushrooms

and broken down

out on a lonesome

desert highway.

"The kind where you'd

sell your soul to the devil,"

he says, and he says it was cold,

so cold, and they'd busted

a drive shaft on the truck,

so they were walking

back to town

swaddled in the

sheepskin seat covers.

"Like human burritos,

with our heads sticking out of

the headrest holes," he says.

And the girls are all

riveted, and wide-eyed,

and laughing when

one of them

finally notices you.

"Hey, how are you?" she says.

"Oh, hell! don't know," you say,

"fair to middling, I guess.

Just trying to make my way

through this hard

goddamned life."

And she gives you a

curious little look.

"Well well well," she says,

"let me guess

you must be

the writer."

And you smile,

take a hero-gulp

of your first Guinness

without breaking

eye contact with

this saucy minx,

this cute girl

you've decided to

be in love with

tonight.